galligaskin

As a frequently depressed person, I often feel as if I and my life are moving forward at dyssonchronous rates. Sometimes I imagine I am Mario, in auto-scrolling level, clinging to the left edge of the screen.

The beauty of a journal is to have a record of all the small ways in which you are not static. I had so many plans for the first six months at my new job. Now, these same plans are for...the next six months.

I did achieve one, long-contemplated thing. I biked to work last week. Just twice, but I hope to make it a habit on pleasant days. The route is 7.4 miles, mostly on paved bike path that cuts through farmland and forest. My speed hovers around 8-9 mph, average, and when I finish, my calves are jello. Still, it’s me, propelling myself forward, by my own muscle.

I have muscles that have been in spasm for 6 years. My joints ache, so I spend little time with my mind settled into my body. It’s made me appreciate the simple, honest, burn of tired quadriceps. I want to feel strong.

The color of my bike, lemon-lime, reminds a little of my first bike without training wheels. I called it my “Watermelon Bike” because it was hot pink and green. I would hose it down, then scrawl my initials in the street with wet tire tracks. It was a good friend, as I hope this one will be. Fingers crossed for a late snow.
 

I last posted to an online journal 149 weeks ago. Why restart now? The communities and journals I followed are dead. Livejournal, once a beacon to my closeted queer self, is now censored by the Russian Federation. Am I experiencing anticipatory grief for AIM?

I tried tumblr. I use instagram—and wordpress—and facebook (begrudgingly).

But I’m nostalgic. I don’t want 140 characters--I want 65,355 bytes. I want a lock-able corner of the internet (mostly) undiscoverable by my distant relatives, high school graduating class, and any employers. I want friends, not followers, and a username, not a “Real Name,” so I can continue to define myself inexplicably as the single pant-leg in a pair of 16th century breeches.

So here I am.

According to the Dreamwidth statistics page, the majority of users are 27 years old. This is comfortably above the mean age distribution of Tumblr, where nearly half of users are 18-24. Now, I don’t mind being friends with the kids these days, but I find myself disinclined to wade into the choppier open waters of the blogosphere to meet them. And I don’t want to “curate” anything that isn’t a museum exhibit.

This is my origin story. My internet career began in 2000 when I was adopted by regulars on the AOL Teen message board, Favorite Authors. My screen name was Hobyah13. A hobyah is a trooping English bogie, of low intelligence but great tenacity. Hobyahs, like Pokémon, cry their own names in battle. According to Mr. S. V. Proudfit (who introduces the species in More English Fairy Tales), hobyahs are extinct, having all been eaten by a little dog named Turpie. This was so amusing to my middle school self that I became Hobyah13, and a friend, Hobyah11. My handle was in turn eaten by AOL chat moderators after the account was hacked. Unsurprisingly, it has never been used by anyone else.

Over the next seventeen years, I branched out, authoring an open diary, a ujournal, and finally, an lj (after waiting a year for the invite code). I kept a tight f-list of people I still miss. Now, it feels dissociating to be without a true online community, and to find myself stumbling over new norms and new slang. (Case in point: I just wikipediaed “internet slang” to make sure no one called it netspeak or chatspeak).

Here’s hoping I’ll find community here...or at least start to write again.